Duty
by paired discontinuity
Summary: Aberforth didn't realize he wore responsibility like a mantle until he didn't have it anymore.


**A/N:** Written for the A Team Competition at the HPFC, with the beginning line: "_He had enjoyed ten years of being totally irresponsible._"

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><p><strong>Duty<strong>

He had enjoyed ten years of being totally irresponsible. Ten years where his parents handled all expenses and his genius elder brother carried the weight of their expectations. Ten years where he messed around in the gardens and a goat his mother claimed was once a witch who'd been snooping around too much - but that might have just been one of those tales parents tell their children to get them to behave - and alternating between glaring at and ignoring his little sister once she was born. Albus, he didn't need to worry about. Albus ignored everyone who couldn't hold an intelligent conversation by his definition.

Unfortunately for him, those ten years were quick to end. It was almost time for him to complete his magical education. Or to start it, at the very least. How boring. School was for Albus, school and awards and praise and attention. No, attention was for his sister: little, excitable Ariana. Why couldn't she just stay out of the garden? She was so noisy and agitated the plants.

At least the plants knew peace and showed their distress. They understood him. His personality. His desires. His need for the shade they provided. And the goat as well. A better baby than Ariana, whose sharp voice left his ears ringing and the snapdragons snapping and the more delicate flowers shuddering as they tried to bury their heads in to their petals.

At least, until the "accident". It was a bit of a taboo topic in the household. Even now. Of course, his dear elder brother wouldn't breach the topic at all. He simply accepted the consequences and went on with his normal, sparkling, life. Bringing good marks and all sorts of awards and setting the bar for Aberforth to reach impossibly high.

Not that he was going to bother. What would the point of that be? Everything good was already done. No, he'd be better here, so much better. He could get her to understand the plants now… Get her to understand that the garden liked peace and quiet and gentle attention and not being yelled at or jerked about. But maybe he didn't need to. Ariana was more tolerable now. Quieter. More gentle. Unless something didn't go her way and she lost her temper. But he could usually calm her down.

Maybe she'd always been that way. Maybe he'd just been making her ill-tempered by ignoring her. But that had been his personal place and he hadn't wanted to share. Until he felt sorry for her. All the magic in the house that had been their life suddenly scaring her. The garden was a haven from that. Just like it was a haven from his perfect genius elder brother.

It might have been a smack in the face to realise he'd been much the same thing for Ariana as Albus had been for him. But still, getting her to be a little gentler to the plants - and she got the hang of it quickly and they began to purr as she stroked them and preen as she complimented them in a way that he could never get them to do - wasn't a responsibility at all. He didn't look after her. He just played with her. Kept her company. Showed her the bit of magic in their world that had nothing to do with wands or sparks or flashes of energy but were in living, breathing, things. The magic that was a part of life, that didn't have to be hidden from Muggles because even a good number of them believed that plants had ears and goats understood the human tongue.

Of course, everything had been uprooted not long after, like always. Because this was what always happened with them. The letter came. Then the accident happened. Everything changed.

Ariana didn't want the change, of course not. How could she? Nothing made sense to her, leaving the plants that said her name just the right way and the goat to slump over in lethargy everyday. Her world shrunk to a few rooms and grimy windows.

Aberforth would have exploded too, but his wouldn't have broken the windows. He protested, heavily. What did he care about school? There was nothing important about it now, not with their mother old and stiff and always angry. She was too firm, Ariana was too pliant. It would end badly. It was better to stay, he didn't care.

Not that Albus saw it his way. But if he stayed home, it would damage him, of course, the perfect student. Why wasn't the brother there? What about the father? So much _shame_. What did the perfect boy understand about shame?

And what did he, Aberforth, care about shame? He would not be welcomed with open arms at Hogwarts; that was his brother's place, his brother's throne. He could rebuild his garden back at their new place: the place that wasn't yet a home. But he could make it their home again. The garden could grow. The paradise he'd shared with Ariana could be born again. Then she wouldn't shut herself up in that tiny room with the grimy windows and cry.

That was his first responsibility. To stem Ariana's tears. Ariana who was sweeter than he'd allowed her to show, until the accident. Until it was almost too late. And now she was a vulnerable little thing. The garden had taken her in. The goat had reached for her. She'd become friends with both.

When they moved, they'd had to leave all that behind. And soon, he had to leave Ariana behind as well. September came, and with it, the start of his first year at Hogwarts.

It was everything he had feared. Boredom. Boxes called classrooms. The interesting classes were all outdoors and one he couldn't even take just now. Even Quidditch was boring. People possibly falling to their deaths and trying to catch a ball no one could see unless their eyes were better than their mouths. Ariana would only giggle for so long. Then she'd be frightened. Give him the peace. Give him the Forest. Crotchety old gamekeeper always chased him away anyhow.

He wanted to be back. Albus was never much company, but knowing he was in the school made his shadow even easier to stand in. It seemed he could just turn his head and hear the teachers sing a praise while he struggled to make his wand make needles. Hmph, that feat alone was nothing.

Mother's letters said very little that was useful. She couldn't say her life was all that exciting, caring for a girl who she didn't understand. It was probably the most boring thing imaginable. Every letter, he asked to come home. As always, it went ignored.

If the daughter could do nothing, both of the sons had to.

And, of course, Ariana didn't have a say. Aberforth wrote to her as well. Her letters spoke of longing for their old life: that garden, that goat...and his company.

Holidays came, breaking the terrible monotone, and in every one Aberforth boarded the Hogwarts Express and went to their house in Godric's Hollow. It still wasn't quite home. He didn't spend long enough there. Long enough with Ariana. He tried, though. He brought plants to fill her room, and spelled it to expand. He made it as good an indoor garden as he could. Nothing dangerous. Nothing loud. Just the gentle magical plants who could comfort her: whisper soft sweet things when she cried, and brush the tears away. It grew over holidays. Their paradise grew.

But where heaven grew, hell grew as well. Aberforth saw more and more of it as the holidays came: Christmas, Easter, the summer before his second year…

It was strange that, no matter how much he tried to cling and stay in this house that was not a home, he was still pulled away with ease. And of course, Albus went on, collecting his prizes and holed up with the greats and the minions. Always smiling like he knew the world and that Aberforth was just another tiny piece of it, beneath him. Sometimes ignored him too.

He didn't like it when the duels happened of course. Tiny destructions of his perfect world. Sometimes, Aberforth thought of Ariana, who would make these idiots quail. They shied from some measly red sparks, what would they be able to do when they saw her rage? Nothing. Worthless punks.

Still, it would be over soon. The big tests were almost over. He didn't care about his grades. Just another sign he would be free. Maybe he would become a farmer. Ariana would love it, the plants would never stop singing. And maybe their precious goat was still there. Or they could get more. Breed them so there'd be a whole herd of them. They'd have a happy, peaceful, life.

But that dream shattered as well. The letter from the Ministry came as soon as he thought he was home free, that he'd only need to hang around and pretend he was planning on coming back after OWLs. He wasn't. He could find a job instead, once he was seventeen and of age. He could find a nice plot of land and buy it with the money he saved from that job. Or use the family fortune if his mother and brother were so inclined to help him.

But then the letter came and his mother was dead and it was a whole different ball game.

If only he'd been there for Ariana. Him and the garden and the goats and their happy paradise. If only he'd been older. Capable of showing his mother and Albus that he could take care of Ariana on his own. That he could make and maintain that paradise the both of them loved so much. That he could keep her fits under control: he and the sweetly whispering garden who wouldn't stiffen whenever her uncontrolled powers burst out of her. Poor, sweet Ariana who hadn't had what she needed to comfort her, who hadn't had the garden, or him.

Poor, sweet, _broken_, Ariana. And Albus, now the head of the family, refused to let Aberforth drop out of school and care for her.


End file.
